Movie Review – The Sleeping Car (1990)

Jason (David Naughton) moves into an abandoned train car where he resurrects the vicious ghost of his landlady’s dead husband… The Mister. After some near-fatal encounters with the violent specter he seeks local exorcist Vincent Tuttle (Kevin McCarthy).

The tagline for The Sleeping Car reads “Forget Freddy, Forget Jason, here comes The Mister!” You can pretty much guess that when a movie compares itself to the icons of horror, the film does not even hold a candle to them.

It is hard to believe that director Douglas Curtis has produced such films as Freddy vs. Jason, Sorority Row, Shoot ‘Em Up and The Philadelphia Experiment. He has only been a director of two films though – The Sleeping Car and The Hazing (1977).

Now, back to The Sleeping Car. This movie, releases in 1990, has all the makings of an 80s horror film. The cheese is abundant in The Sleeping Car. I will admit that the jokes are horrible and get annoying very quickly, but even with the horrible jokes, I was intrigued by some of the characters. Kim, played by Judie Aronson was a good character that was fun to watch. You would probably recognize her as Samantha from Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter.Â Also, Jason, played by David Naughton, was a decent lead actor in the film.

Some of the kills were somewhat inventive, but not exactly groundbreaking from a slasher film perspective. Overall, the film was pretty much a snoozer, but if you are a Netflix subscriber, you can check it out while it is streaming.